Billionaire Boy (2 page)

• Another crocodile
  
• £100,000 a week pocket money
  
• A rollercoaster in the back garden
  
• A professional recording studio in the attic
  
• Personalised football coaching from the England team
  
• A real-life shark in a tank
  

In short, Joe was one horribly spoilt kid. He went to a ridiculously posh school. He flew on private planes whenever he went on holiday. Once, he even had Disneyworld closed for the day, just so he wouldn’t have to queue for any rides.

Here’s Joe. Speeding around his own private racetrack in his own Formula One racing car.

Some very rich children have miniature versions of cars specially built for them. Joe wasn’t one of those children. Joe needed his Formula One car made a bit
bigger
. He was quite fat, you see. Well, you would be, wouldn’t you? If you could buy all the chocolate in the world.

You will have noticed that Joe is on his own in that picture. To tell the truth, speeding around a racetrack isn’t that much fun when you are on your own, even if you do have a squillion pounds. You really need someone to race against. The problem was Joe didn’t have any friends. Not one.

• Friends
  

Now, driving a Formula One car and unwrapping a king-size Mars Bar are two things you shouldn’t try and do at the same time. But it had been a few moments since Joe had last eaten and he was hungry. As he entered the chicane, he tore open the wrapper with his teeth and took a bite of the delicious chocolate-coated nougat and caramel. Unfortunately, Joe only had one hand on the steering wheel, and as the wheels of the car hit the verge, he lost control.

The multi-million-pound Formula One car careered off the track, span around, and hit a tree.

The tree was unharmed. But the car was a write-off. Joe squeezed himself out of the cockpit. Luckily Joe wasn’t hurt, but he was a little dazed, and he tottered back to the house.

“Dad, I crashed the car,” said Joe as he entered the palatial living room.

Mr Spud was short and fat, just like his son. Hairier in a lot of places too, apart from his head – which was bald and shiny. Joe’s dad was sitting on a hundred-seater crocodile skin sofa and didn’t look up from reading that day’s copy of the
Sun
.

“Don’t worry Joe,” he said. “I’ll buy you another one.”

Joe slumped down on the sofa next to his dad.

“Oh, happy birthday, by the way, Joe.” Mr Spud handed an envelope to his son, without taking his eyes off the girl on Page 3.

Joe opened the envelope eagerly. How much money was he going to receive this year? The card, which read ‘Happy 12
^th
Birthday Son’, was quickly discarded in favour of the cheque inside.

Joe could barely disguise his disappointment. “One million pounds?” he scoffed. “Is that all?”

“What’s the matter, son?” Mr Spud put down his newspaper for a moment.

“You gave me a million
last
year,” whined Joe. “When I turned eleven. Surely I should get more now I’m twelve?”

Mr Spud reached into the pocket of his shiny grey designer suit and pulled out his chequebook. His suit was horrible, and horribly expensive. “I’m so sorry son,” he said. “Let’s make it two million.”

Now, it’s important you realise that Mr Spud had not always been this rich.

Not so long ago the Spud family had lived a very humble life. From the age of sixteen, Mr Spud worked in a vast loo-roll factory on the outskirts of town. Mr Spud’s job at the factory was
sooooo
boring. He had to roll the paper around the cardboard inner tube.

Roll after roll.

Day after day.

Year after year.

Decade after decade.

This he did, over and over again, until nearly all his hope had gone. He would stand all day by the conveyor belt with hundreds of other bored workers, repeating the same mind-numbing task. Every time the paper was rolled onto one cardboard tube, the whole thing started again. And every loo roll was the same. Because the family was so poor, Mr Spud used to make birthday and Christmas presents for his son from the loo-roll inner tubes. Mr Spud never had enough money to buy Joe all the latest toys, but would make him something like a loo-roll racing car, or a loo-roll fort complete with dozens of loo-roll soldiers. Most of them got broken and ended up in the bin. Joe did manage to save a sad looking little loo-roll space rocket, though he wasn’t sure why.